


heritors

by roguepath



Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Spoilers, don't even read the description if you haven't finished the post-game content, gates of finis lore has me fucked up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 12:11:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15841056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguepath/pseuds/roguepath
Summary: alfyn doesn’t sleep the night after galdera.





	heritors

**Author's Note:**

> you ever wake up at 9PM and think about how much the gates of finis must have effed everyone up

Alfyn doesn’t sleep the night after Galdera.

They’re all a long ways from anything so much as resembling an inn, so they set up a campfire, pull some dinner together. It’s a system at this point, with it’s own, muted rhythm.

As for Alfyn… Well, he tries. He goes through the motions; he still helps H’aanit cook the stew, still yawns like a giant, but there’s — there’s this _thing._ A veil of sorts, one he’s only vaguely aware of. Like he does what he should, and knows that he is, but only by a span, and instead seeing someone else do so instead.

So even when he hits the hay for the night, he’s still untethered, still drifting; so he shifts in his bedroll to keep his head here, but it doesn’t help because there’s too _much_ in his head, and moving doesn’t take away from it, and moving makes noise which people hear, and people wake up to, which won’t do ‘cause everyone’s done so damn much and they don’t deserve _that —_

— so Alfyn gets up. Slowly, quietly as he can, takes a knife just in case, and makes his way to the brook that neighbors their one-night campsite.

It’s a thin, muddy one. It sloshes as it flows, and Alfyn has to watch his steps so his boots don’t get muddier than they are as is.

But it helps. It reminds himself of home, and most importantly, keeps him here. Keeps him anchored.

He crouches, and remembers. The memories that played before their eyes like a tragedy in a theater unfolding. The shadows of murderers, monsters, the ending chapters to their stories. The recognition that flicked onto their faces. Primrose’s disgust and horror. Therion’s muted, bottled fear. Ophilia’s quiet anger. Cyrus’ determination. Olberic’s resolve.

As if they happened years ago, and not just hours before.

“...Alfyn?”

Tressa.

He turns his head, and sees her, hair mussed up and in a messy ponytail, bandages applied to her legs, arms.

“Tress…?” he murmurs. “Why’re you awake at this hour?”

“I was gonna ask the same thing,” she replies, like the sunshine in her voice has been drained and left to dry. “You’re the one who got up and left. Are you… Okay?”

He heaves a sigh, like it’ll do a damn thing to lift the weight of the world off his shoulders. “Nah.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

No.

“...I dunno.”

She gives a slight nod. “What happened back there, with Kit, and that woman — that… That was real, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Alfyn replies. “All of it.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.”

“Hah… Really doesn’t.” A pensive silence, as if to let the fact sink in. That they could have died. They all could have died. And like Graham, none would be the wiser. “At this point,” Alfyn begins. “Askin’ if any one of us are alright after that is just…” He searches for the right word.

“Fruitless. Even if I _was_ the one who asked so,” Tressa suggests, a small scoff punctuating it.

“Kinda. So I’ll skip that, and just ask ya… If you wanna talk about it?”

A dip of her head, in lieu of a nod or a reply. “Yeah. But I don’t really know _what_ to say. Feels real, it _is_ real, but to describe in words…” Grimaces. “I dunno. I dunno if I can do that without feeling like I’m underscoring, or something.”

“I know the feeling,” he says. “Just… Makes me feel buncha everythin’ and nothin’, all at once. It’s _wrong.”_

“It is,” Tressa says, her shoulders slumping. “He was — he was your hero. To learn that this happened to him, it’s… It’s just that. Wrong.”

“Hey,” he murmurs, giving her a light bump with his elbow. “He was important to you too, ya know. ‘s not like I got a corner on the market of hurt to deal with.”

She breathes a sigh out through her nose. “Right. And… Yeah. He was. He’s the reason why I set out on this journey on the first place. He’s why I met all of you.”

“And he’s why I became an apothecary.”

“It feels horrible,” she mumbles. “Knowing that everything… That it ended like this.”

“Ain’t that the truth…” He breathes out a sigh, and turns his gaze to the brook. “He’s the man I work towards, a _goal,_ I s’pose. I always wanted to surpass him, so if we ever met up again, I could show him how much I’ve grown. But now, I…”

“...Hey.” She nudges him, this time. “He would’ve been proud of you — I’m sure of it. You carry on his story as an apothecary.”

“And you, Tress — his journey.”

“Yeah. So, just, I dunno —” Tressa sucks in a shallow breath, and he doesn’t need to look at her to know that she’s on the verge of tears. Because he feels them too, if he hasn’t already and just hasn’t noted it. “— it hurts, it hurts a lot, but… Maybe he’s at peace, now that he’s seen Kit and all — and maybe he’s proud of us too. So, we’ll carry his story with us. Make sure he isn’t really lost, you know?”

Graham Crossford was, to them, a hero. An example. A guide. He was unforgettable.

But he was also a cautionary tale. He was one of the unclaimed bones and flesh that Tressa finds on the side of the road. He was one of those Alfyn was too little, too late to save. An everyday hero, but at the same time, a villain created.

And Alfyn remembers; the time he’s sang lullabies to ease the pain, all the times he’s said that it’d work out, but let the lives slip through his fingers in the end. That he believes firmly that there is always a place in this world for _everyone,_ but knows that a whole lot of people die absolutely alone, and no one cares.

That like him, he is a man of duality. That there is a cure for every poison, and a poison for every cure.

“Yeah,” Alfyn says, through a sniffle. “We will.”

That he carries bits and pieces of him as he walks down the path he’s mapped out for himself, and that he hopes, that maybe, just maybe,

he and Tressa can be that story to someone else.

* * *

They travel to Orewell the following spring. Stories are told. Introductions are made. Flowers are brought and planted.

Wildflowers from Clearbrook, and seaside blooms grown in Rippletide. They’re imperfect, nothing like the kinds they sell at Victor’s Hollow nor Grandport; but Alfyn and Tressa grew them with love, and redefined their meanings as _gratitude_ as they did.

**Author's Note:**

> at some point, i _do_  want to write something on how everyone deals with the gates of finis in detail, but for now, have this alfyn and tressa drabble. they’re good pals whom i Support
> 
> as always, i hope you enjoyed this; catch me on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/thiefexp), or my new [tumblr](https://roguepath.tumblr.com/) now that i’ve remade!


End file.
